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Bad Signals
WARREN ELLIS
I think what I'm looking for in the
Novella is something akin to the
music single experience, maybe.
Every month or so, if your ear's
to the ground, there is one genuinely
marvellous single. Everyone's
taste varies, of course. But in the
last few months I've experienced the
mad pop obsession with the likes of
The Arcade Fire's "Crown Of Love,"
Wolf Parade's "Dear Sons And
Daughters Of Hungry Wolves,"
Johnny Boy's "You Are The Generation
That Bought More Shoes" and, to
my lasting shame, "Can't Stand Me
Now" by the Libertines.
Self-contained experiences that
do something to the front of your
head, if not your heart and guts.
Short and replayable.
In a publishing system where OGNs
carry economic penalties...in a
direct market still geared to the
periodical... A team producing, say,
four 48pp novellas in a year is a
band. But cut loose from the serial.
It's not "the new issue of X" so
much as "the new book by Y & Z"
-- original self-contained works,
but produced on a periodical basis,
each standing under their own name.
Doesn't solve the problem of stores
wanting people in on a weekly basis.
But, that said, it took my local
store all month to sell out of TRANSMET
because the audience wasn't hardcore
comicsfan, but people with a
multiplicity of interests who found
the time once a month to come in
and buy the only comic they wanted.
A regular 32pp single with 22pp of
comics in it costs up to four US
dollars. A novella with a full 48pp
of comics would cost somewhere
between five and seven. And you
don't need the issue before it or
the issue after it to either make
sense of it or get a complete
experience from it (unless the
single is written specifically for the
format, like DEMO or GLOBAL
FREQUENCY, but they're getting
rare, as most of us are serialising
GNs through singles).
The novella stays in print. It gets
you out of the rut of being pulled
off the stand after a week like the
single. You don't live or die on the
initial orders. Like the TPB or OGN,
it's a permanent shelf-life item.
Wouldn't it be nice to at least try
to break a different form in the
comics stores? Establish a different
economy for original work? Screw
living and dying in singles. Leave
that whole thing behind.
I am a total schizophrenic, yes.
More to come.
-- W
blog/site. I mostly deals with american day green idiot single
Please come and check it out if you get the time!
Hard Fact
Total Gross Sales of Top 28 North American Comics Released in October'04: $5,865,580.69
Total Gross Sales of Lucky Luke Vol. 2 #1: $5,990,643
R.I.P. O.D.B.
Kings of Leon
Aha Shake Heartbreak
Let's Buy a Bridge
http://journals.aol.com/abrasivist/Abrasivist/
: 11:03 PM
The Invisibles
"My advice is just to white out the offending dialogue in your comics with correcting fluid and then, using a fine-nibbed lettering pen, write in your own, more pleasing and continuity-appropriate version of the character's words. It will make your comic collection more individual, more continuity-conscious and much more creative and it will also allow you to edit and collaborate with your favorite writers."
-Grant Morrison
What, Me?
Fear & Loathing
The PLAYERS
SchadenfreudeLondon Shmondon
Christine the Superstar
Theresa in Turkey
The Long Haul
Blue
Way of the North
Skylar
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Young Liars
Rhetoric Pig
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The STATS
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